I1

January 8, 2005

Do you have the dates for 2005 as well ?

January 7, 2005

Apologies, I was being careless with words when I said that Archant IT/IS are ignoring users (which they are not).

What I meant to say is that whilst users want a forum with decent functionality (and facilities), where facilities that do exist facilities and do what they should, where there is a degree of reliability, where users do not spend ages tidying up after bugs if forum software, etc., Archant IT/IS feel their IS strategy (“Microsoft everything”) is more important. However, the “Microsoft everything” IT strategy is only one of many possible strategies available – and at present LF forum users are suffering because this strategy is more important that the users.

January 6, 2005

“What's wrong with all that free forum software everyone else uses?”

Don’t ask. Many of us users have been asking that question for some time now. Don’t know if the post is still available, but it was revealed how much LF paid for this forum software and it was not cheap. I’ve gone on a length about the quality of this system, its bugs, poor functionality, etc. (particularly when compared to the free stuff, e.g. phpBB).

However, it seems that LF (or rather Archant) IT/IS have a “strategy” that involves ignoring the users, providing then with buggy and inadequate software, etc. but the good thing is that it is entirely Microsoft based.

January 6, 2005

These days with SPAM problems and the like, mail flooding is pretty rude as its not difficult to implement prevention (other forums have it) – I agree with your comment.

Most forum systems have an option in your personal settings (or Control Panel) which allows you to set the default to request notifications or not to request notifications. It have been unable to find such functionality with this forum. I have found quite a few things that don’t work here and I guess it sounds like you have found another. If you never use notifications atall, you could always change your e-mail address to something (e.g. [email protected]) and whilst this address would get the messages you would never see them (and they would probably bounce back to LF).

January 6, 2005

On most forums you can subscribe to a topic without participating. As far as I can tell, the developers of this software consider that you should participate to monitor posts, thus (as far as I can find) you do need to participate. I don't know what happens if you post, subscribe and then delete your post.

However, be warned, this forum software also has no “mail flooding” limitations so, if it is a lively topic and you don’t check regularly you could be a bit flooded with mails notifying you of each post (most forums send one mail message then stop until you have visited the topic when you mail notifications will, restart).

I don't know how new you are to this forum but there are quite a few more limitations and things that don't work here than on most other forums (e.g. there is nothing telling you I have edited this message several times - even should I edit it after others have made posts afterwards). And there is a risk that you may get an update notification for each time the message is edited (if you have subscribed to this topic you may have received several notifications for my single post - interesting to know if you did).

January 5, 2005

If a personal profile, if you set your homepage to e.g. www.mypage.com, anybody clicking on the link will get a

The page cannot be found

(full page at the bottom)

Because the link is actually being provided by the forum software is: http://forums.livingfrance.com/controls/www.mypage.com

If you precede the website address with an http:// then it works.

Question. Has this forum software ever been tested or are we enduring all these issues to help the developers by testing their software for free. I work in the software industry and had I supplied software of this quality to a customer I would (quite rightly) be in big big trouble.

Full page returned by the browser:

The page cannot be found

The page you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable.

Please try the following:

· If you typed the page address in the Address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly.

· Open the forums.livingfrance.com home page, and then look for links to the information you want.

· Click the Back button to try another link.

HTTP 404 - File not found

Internet Information Services

Technical Information (for support personnel)

More information:

Microsoft Support

January 4, 2005

I’m afraid I can’t help you with specific information.

However, I have such an external gas tank for my central heating/hot water. It holds approx 1 tonne of gas and I believe does not belong to me. I use PrimaGaz and pay them an annual subscription for the tank. It was already installed when I purchased the property so don’t know who paid for it (or who installed it), nor actually who is responsible for maintaining it. However, PrimaGaz visit every couple of months (to check if it needs topping-up) so I guess their person would probably say if something was wrong. I did have a leak from one of the 2 (required) regulators but it was small and I got a professional to fix it.

Maybe try talking to whoever you plan to purchase your gas from. Also, I believe that such gas is an expensive way to purchase energy.

January 4, 2005

I believe I have read somewhere that, insurance premium increases are also limited for automatic renewal and that if the increase is above the limit then the client needs to be notified before the notification date for terminating (e.g. the 2 months mentioned) or maybe even longer to give the client time to respond. This effectively protects the client from an automatic massive premium increase without any option for non-renewal. I do not know if this applies to loss of discount type increases (e.g. introductory discount, no claims discount, etc.).

If what I read was correct and your insurers have increased their premium beyond those limits then you might be able to argue that you did not receive the increase notification.

Others with more experience might be able to confirm as to if this is correct and if so, what the premium increase limits might be (i.e. without adequate notification to client).

January 3, 2005

[quote]I agree that the situation you find yourself in is ridiculous but even if it worked remember E-mail is still not used as widely in France as in England, messages written in English are likely to be ig...[/quote]

Certainly, when I was having my ADSL problems I e-mailed Wanadoo quite a few times (apologising that I had to write in English). I always got an automated acknowledgement but never any further response. Wanadoo do have some technical support people who speak English (as I have spoken to them) but it does seem (as Will the Conquer... said) that e-mails in English can be ignored (my experience being with Wanadoo rather than France Telecom).

No idea about your French language skills, but just posting to say my experience is the same as Will the Conquer... indicated.

January 3, 2005

I used it a couple of months ago as I had been having loads of trouble with my ADSL and the standard FT only ever just tested the line and said it was within specification (but still the ADSL did not work). Although slightly outside their responsibility they were very helpful and went through loads of things - eventually talking to the FT engineering and I then got an engineer calling round and it has worked fine ever since.

January 3, 2005

There is an France Telecom english speaking service on 0800 364 775 (from France)or +33 1 55 78 60 56.

Their hours are Mon to Fri 8:30 to 20:00. They used not to have any call queuing system and can be a bit busy to to get through can take some time - but things may have changed.

(http://www.francetelecom.fr/en/tools/others/contactus.html)

January 2, 2005

I checked the numbers of people active in the last 20 minutes to see if the site was particularly busy which might have explained the high number of errors I had received (as computer systems can exhibit increases error rates when under high loading). The number of people active in the last 20 minutes (members and guests) was low and thus it my comment was to indicate that the user loading on the site did not account for the high number of failures over an extended period of time.

January 2, 2005

I've been posting quite a bit (with loads of duplicates) for some time now yet I note that I am not listed as an active user:

(or maybe the software has "blacklisted me")

>>>>>>

Members Online: Boiling a frog, brian-limousin, Chateau Chavagnac, Chrissie, David_584, Helen16, hughmandy, Labucherie, Musicmonkey, Opas, Patf, Paulholman, Piddy, Russethouse, St Lo, Sunshine_2, Teamedup, Thisfrenchlife

Forum Activity

Latest message posted Today @ 12:23 by I1 within Living France Magazine & Website

January 2, 2005

Also, just checked and there are not too many people active in the last 20 minutes so activity is pretty quite.

January 2, 2005

I'm giving up on this now - there are better things to do in life.

And another one on this post